Mallory And That Green Thing
by Red Witch
Summary: Mallory gives her opinion on the environmental crisis.


** Mallory bagged up the disclaimer telling you that I don't own any Archer characters. Not even this idea is mine. It's from a story circling around on the Internet. I admit it. Some of this stuff I remember when I was a kid. Then I decided to put Mallory's spin on it. This is going to get a little more violent than what happens in the original story. **

**Mallory And That Green Thing **

"I hate grocery shopping like a poor person," Mallory grumbled as she walked along the aisles of an upscale grocery store. Ray was pushing the cart.

Lana was also with them holding a list. "This is a very nice Begman's. They even have premade dinners you can just put in the oven."

"Assuming Ms. Archer can turn on the oven," Ray remarked.

"Ray!" Lana snapped.

"He's not wrong!" Mallory snapped. "These new ovens look like something out of a Star War. Who do I look like? The engineer of the Enterprise?"

"Okay in the first place," Lana began. "Those are two completely different…Never mind. Not important. The point is that this is a nice grocery store."

"An **expensive** grocery store," Ray remarked. "You could go in hock in the cheese section alone!"

"God, I miss the days when they just brought my groceries to my apartment," Mallory grumbled.

"Well maybe if you didn't get banned from your delivery service…?" Lana began.

"How do you get banned from a delivery service?" Ray asked.

Mallory shrugged. "Who remembers?"

"**You **should," Ray told her. "Because whatever you're doing is pissing people off."

"Mallory you should be thankful Ray and I decided to help you with your grocery shopping," Lana said.

"**You** decided," Ray corrected. "I was forced into this."

"She does that to you too, huh?" Mallory asked.

"Oh yeah," Ray nodded.

They walked down an aisle. "Finally!" Mallory groaned as she started grabbing bottles of alcohol off the shelves. "We're at the **good aisle**!"

"The best thing about California," Ray agreed as he put several bottles in her cart.

"You're not wrong," Mallory nodded as she did the same.

"There is more to California than being able to buy alcohol in a grocery store," Lana said.

"Yes, but most of them in the words of Pam," Mallory paused. "Suck balls."

"You should eat healthier," Lana cautioned.

"Here," Ray said as he put some wine in the cart. "What? Grapes are healthy."

"He's not wrong!" Mallory said. "Plus, I read wine is healthy for your heart. No cracks Gillette about something I don't have."

"Don't have to," Ray said. "You just did."

"Let's just check out," Lana sighed. "We got everything on the list and then some."

"I don't understand why we had to drive halfway across town to get my groceries," Mallory grumbled as they went down the aisle.

"Well we wouldn't have to if we weren't **banned** from the six other grocery stores closer to us," Lana told Mallory.

"One, I was only involved in **three **out of the six," Mallory corrected. "Second, we weren't banned from **all **of them."

"Well we certainly can't go back to them," Lana groaned. "Especially after your rants and insults at cashiers turned into near riots."

"What did the other idiots do to get banned?" Mallory asked.

"Two of them were Archer's fault," Ray said.

"Only **two?**" Mallory asked sarcastically. "Quelle surprise. Should I be asking whom he did?"

"No, but…" Lana sighed.

FLASHBACK!

"WHOOOOO!" A drunken Archer was riding a child's space rocket toy outside a supermarket. "DANGER ZONE!"

FLASHBACK!

Cyril was in the grocery store looking at some peppers. "These will be perfect for Stir Friday."

"Hey Cyril!" Archer called out. "HEAD'S UP!"

SPLAT!

"ARCHER!" Cyril shouted as he was hit on the back of the head with a tomato.

"I said head's up!" Archer snickered. He was by the tomatoes with some in his hand.

"ARCHER! HEAD'S UP!" Pam was heard shouting.

"What…?" Archer turned around.

SPLAT!

Archer glared at Pam as a ripe pomegranate dribbled down his face. "I said head's up!" Pam snickered.

"Why you…?" Archer prepared to throw some tomatoes at Pam.

"HEAD'S UP!"

WHACK!

"OW!" Archer shouted as some ears of corn hit him from behind. "Who throws **corn?"**

"He, he, he…" Cheryl giggled.

"That's how you want to play it huh?" Archer snapped as he threw some tomatoes.

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!

"Oops," Archer snickered. Lana glared at him; her outfit covered in tomatoes.

"You missed!" Cheryl giggled.

"Hey Lana…" Archer smirked as Lana walked up to him. "Red really is your color."

SMASH!

"You don't look half bad in it yourself," Lana snapped as she smashed a tomato on his clothes.

"Lana! This is a bespoke shirt!" Archer was horrified. "You ruined my shirt!"

"And you ruined my dress!" Lana pointed.

"Oh, big deal!" Archer waved. "You have at least thirty of those things in different colors. This is a one of a kind…"

"HEAD'S UP!" Pam called out.

SPLAT! WHACK!

A pomegranate hit Archer in the back. Some corn hit Lana in the back.

"One…" Archer counted. "Two, three, four…I DECLARE A FOOD WAR!"

That was the official start of the chaos. Archer and the others were throwing produce at each other madly in the produce section.

"OW!" Lana snapped as a pepper hit her on the head.

"Sorry!" Cyril apologized. "I was aiming for Archer!"

SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!

"HEY!" Cyril snapped as he was hit by tomatoes.

_ "ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!"_ Archer sang out as he threw the tomatoes. _"ATTACK! OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!" _

SPLAT!

"BITCH!" Ray swore. "THIS IS CASHMERE!"

"Ooh, sorry Ray…" Archer winced. "I didn't…AAAHH!"

"HIT THE DECK!" Lana shouted as she and Archer ducked as a swarm of carrots and other produce was thrown at them.

THUNK!

A carrot was wedged into the wall behind Archer and Lana. "Holy…" Lana gulped as she saw how it was sunk halfway into the wall.

"Okay," Archer gulped. "New rule. Ray, you are **not** allowed to throw things with your robot hand!"

"What the hell is going on…?" A grocer came out and was immediately pelted by several rounds of fruit and vegetables.

"Well that's one way of getting your daily recommended servings of fruit and vegetables," Archer snickered.

FLASHFORWARD!

"That explains that huge grocery bill I got," Mallory groaned. "When I didn't remember buying anything."

"That one was a real mess," Ray sighed.

Mallory made a noise of derision. "I'm almost afraid to ask what idiot did what the third time."

"Well…" Ray began.

FLASHBACK!

"BE FREE!" Cheryl cackled as she unbanned lobsters and set them loose on the floor of a grocery store. "BE FREE! HA HA HA HA!"

"YEOW!" Someone shouted.

"YES! YES! PINCH THEM MY PRETTIES!" Cheryl cackled. "HA! HA! OWW!"

She saw one lobster pinching her hand. "You're Mommy's new favorite pet!" Cheryl giggled. "I'm gonna call you Pinchy!"

FLASHFORWARD!

"And Pinchy was her favorite pet," Ray sighed. "Right up until six. Then its name was changed to Dinner."

"And those are reasons why our names are mud in half the grocery stores in town," Lana said as they approached the checkout lines. "So please behave yourselves."

"I'm not the one who throws insults and produce," Ray sniffed. "Usually."

"Oh, dear God," Mallory groaned when she saw the young tattooed male cashier with several piercings at the register. "Groucho Marx would have loved to sing about **this!**"

"Mallory," Lana warned, her voice low.

Mallory sniffed. "I'm just saying I remember I time when you had to pay a quarter to see that many tattoos on a person. Or go down to the docks to meet sailors. Right Gillette?"

"Like **you **wouldn't know," Ray countered.

Mallory nodded. "Touché. And what's with all the piercings? What? Young people all of the sudden need **more holes** in their heads?"

"They're just expressing themselves," Lana said in a low whisper.

"I should express myself," Mallory said. "Tell them they're idiots."

"Mallory please," Lana groaned.

"That kid is going to have a face like SpongeBob SquarePants when he gets older," Ray whispered to Mallory.

"With an IQ to match," Mallory agreed.

"Mallory!" Lana hissed.

"What? I've seen some of those ghastly things while babysitting your daughter!" Mallory pointed out. "I have to say, there are some frightening parallels between the idiots on the cartoon and the idiots we have at the agency!"

"You've noticed that too?" Ray asked. "It's not just me?"

"Behave!" Lana hissed through her teeth as the line got shorter. "Just _behave!_"

"Fine," Mallory rolled her eyes.

Soon it was their turn to pay. "Are you throwing a party or something?" The cashier asked.

"Or something, yes," Lana sighed.

"And I don't suppose you have bags with you?" The cashier asked.

"Why would I have bags?" Mallory asked. "Last I checked this wasn't an airport."

"You really should have your own reusable bags," The cashier looked at Mallory. "Plastic bags are non-recyclable. They're not good for the environment."

"We'll buy a couple," Lana gulped and grabbed some reusable bags near the register. "There we can use these."

"I'm sorry," Mallory said sarcastically. "I grew up in a time when you didn't need matching luggage just to go to the grocery store! My generation never had that green thing that goes on today."

The cashier clucked his stud laden tongue. "That's the problem with your generation."

_"Excuse me?"_ Mallory bristled.

"Oh no…" Lana winced.

"Here we go…" Ray groaned.

The cashier went on. "Your generation just didn't do enough to save the environment back then."

Mallory gave the cashier a look. "You're right. We didn't think about the environment. We didn't have that green thing when we were children or young adults."

"See?" The smug cashier said.

"It's a trap," Ray winced.

Mallory added. "Of course, back in my day we didn't **have** plastic bottles. We had glass bottles for our alcohol, our milk and even our sodas. When we were finished, we sent them back to the store which sent them to their respective plants to be washed and sterilized so they could be reused. Just throwing them out was a completely ridiculous concept for us."

"Uh…" The cashier blinked.

"Told you," Ray sighed.

Mallory went on. "Of course, we didn't have plastic bags either. We had **paper **bags we reused for various things. Trash. Other groceries. Sometimes torn up and used for packaging materials. Often, we used them to cover the outside of our school books. In order to protect them so that the next class after us could reuse them."

"We did that too," Ray remembered. "I drew all over mine. It was fun. In hindsight though drawing all those rainbows and hearts did kind of make me a target..."

"Of course, when we did send packages, we often used crumpled up newspapers too," Mallory said. "No Styrofoam or bubble wrap that you young people use today because we didn't have that **green thing**!"

"Uh…" The cashier blinked.

"And we certainly didn't have plastic disposable diapers back then!" Mallory went on. "Oh no! Back then our diapers were cloth we had to wash by hand and put together with a safety pin! Which should have been named Stab Your Hand With Pin. Because we didn't have that green thing you have **today!**"

"You changed a **diaper?"** Lana asked.

"Yes! Once or twice!" Mallory snapped. "I remember Sterling urinating on me at least twice! In hindsight I should have seen that as an omen. That's when I started having Woodhouse do it."

"That makes sense," Ray nodded.

Mallory glared at the cashier. "We also hung up the diapers to dry outside on a clothesline out in the fresh air, along with a lot of other clothes. Didn't have that many washing machines or dryers gobbling up electricity to do it! We actually did have to rely on the sun and the wind to dry our clothes."

"**You** _actually_…?" Ray began.

"I was out in the field a lot!" Mallory snapped. "I obviously didn't have a servant all the time! I made do!"

Mallory turned on the cashier. "We also made do with hand me down clothes, walking upstairs because we didn't have escalators, walking to the store or using public transportation instead of jumping in a car to get groceries, and hand pushed lawnmowers with no power engines. We had one television or radio in the house. We drank from fountains when we were thirsty because we didn't have Styrofoam cups. We had refillable pens because nobody had disposable ones in those days. And mixed food **by hand** because we didn't have those fancy blenders that use electricity like **you do!"**

"You had **hand me** **down** _clothes?_" Lana asked.

"Well not me personally," Mallory admitted. "But a lot of other people did. I've heard stories."

Mallory then turned on the cashier. "Plus, we didn't have fifty outlets for every little appliance or do dad. We had one plug in the wall for each room and that was **it!** And when we wanted to find out something, we used either newspapers or encyclopedias! It was this old-fashioned thing called **research**!"

"To be fair," Ray realized. "A lot of those things were done when I was a kid too."

"Yeah me too," Lana realized. "Oh God now that makes me feel old!"

"Me too," Ray groaned.

"Youth is overrated," Mallory waved. "It's wasted on the young! And so are brain cells apparently."

"Well you still screwed up the world," The cashier said.

"Yeah," Mallory said sarcastically. "All we did was defeat The Axis of Evil, saved the world from fascism, preserved democracy and rebuilt society! You're **welcome!**"

"How old **are you?"** Ray blinked.

"Well what about racism?" The cashier asked.

"That was our parents!" Mallory snapped. "Blame **them!**"

"Yeah no offense," Lana said. "Your generation isn't exactly making great strides in that department either. Kind of backsliding a little actually."

"At least most of my generation learned to hate Nazis and have respect for our elders!" Mallory snapped. "Which is more than what I can say for **yours!**"

Mallory leaned in. "In fact, I can't help but notice this whole green thing didn't start to be a thing until **your generation** started running around with all your fancy gadgets. Maybe instead of blaming **my generation** and all the other generations before you for the problems _you have_…You should work on your **own problems**! Because buster you have a lot more wrong with you than I did in my day! And we were fighting a god damn world war and coming out of a depression!"

Several older people in the store called out and started clapping. "Yeah! That's telling him! Damn whippersnappers think they know everything!"

"I would start with learning how to **add and subtract**!" Mallory snapped. "You clearly can't do it yourself if you need a machine to tell you what change to give!"

The older people cheered Mallory. This egged her on. "And while I'm speaking my mind, who the hell are **you** to lecture me about the choices I made as a youth! When your mistakes are so obvious! Seriously, I've seen Rorschach tests with less ink on them!"

"This is called self-expression!" The cashier snapped.

"This is called a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling," Mallory told him.

"Trust me on this one kid," An older man spoke up. "When I was your age, I tattooed a cute hula dancer on my arm. Now she looks like Rosanne at a luau."

"To be fair," The older woman with him said. "He only did it because he was on leave and drunk with his fellow Navy buddies during the war."

"Well that's completely understandable," Mallory said.

"How come **he **gets a pass on tattoos?" The cashier snapped.

"Because he was fighting a war, you dumb ass!" Mallory snapped as she whacked him on the head with her purse. "Have some respect!"

"OW!" The cashier winced and fell to the floor.

"Typical," Mallory snapped. "Lightweight!"

She leaned into a microphone. "Attention shoppers, I have an announcement! Young people suck!"

"YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK!" The older people called out waving their canes and walkers. "YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK! YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK!"

"And we jump right into a riot," Ray rolled his eyes as some older people started whacking younger people with canes.

"YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK! YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK!" Mallory led the chant.

"Okay we all suck! Fine!" Lana said as she steered Mallory out. "Let's just go…Ray, grab the cart and go!"

"But we didn't…" Ray began. "Never mind!" The raced out the door.

"YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK! YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK! YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK!"

"OW! THOSE CANES HURT!" Someone shouted.

"That made my day," Mallory grinned.

"We can never come back to this store, can we?" Lana groaned as they left.

"Nope," Ray sighed. "We may have to move out of LA pretty soon. We're running out of places that we **can **go!"


End file.
